The new space age is here

By Sue White

16 May 2018 — 9:32am

When giving a birthday gift to a child, we usually deem it a success if it gets a seemingly genuine ‘‘wow’’ from the receiver. But whoever chose Julia Mitchell’s tenth birthday present hit the jackpot.

‘‘I received an A3 poster with stickers of planets. That’s the moment I realised that I wanted to work in space,’’ she says.

Today, Mitchell leads large space-related projects for the Australia and New Zealand CRC for Spatial Information.

In layman’s terms, she spends her days problem solving so that the rest of us can access the power of satellites for everyday tasks.

Julia Mitchell knew at age ten that she wanted to work in the space sector.

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‘‘When your Uber is stopped on the other side of the road, that’s because GPS only has around four metres accuracy,’’ she says.

But with the satellite technology Mitchell works on, frustrations like this quickly become obsolete.

‘‘You’ll always be picked up at the right spot,’’ she says.

Mitchell would like to change the perception that careers in space technology are limited to life as an astronaut.

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‘‘The space sector is significantly wider than a lot of people think. You can be anyone using satellite imagery or satellite positioning technology in a location-based service app, through to someone building satellite hubs or designing a rocket,’’ she says.

For her part, Mitchell works in the ’downstream’ space sector, dealing with the users of space technology. She’s currently using her training as an engineer to work on dozens of projects testing satellite positioning across Australia and New Zealand.

‘‘Engineers have a good, logical way to solve problems, it’s a very important background,’’ Mitchell says.

Dr David Williams is the former CEO of the UK Space Agency.

Another person who is dedicating his days to the space sector, CSIRO’s Dr Dave Williams, agrees that there are plenty of options for those interested in a space-oriented career.

The former CEO of the UK Space Agency and former Chairman of the European Space agency is now is the executive director of CSIRO’s National Facilities and Collections. He says new space industry jobs exist in areas like nanotechnologies and data analytics, and of course there’s continuing demand for scientists, engineers and software engineers.

The newly announced Australian Space Agency could soon create a boon for local space sector jobs, potentially tripling the size of Australia’s industry by 2030 to $10-$12 billion, according to a report prepared for the Australian Government.

The Australian Space Agency may shift our understanding about what space work actually involves, but Williams says one thing is clear: investment in space has a little discussed side benefit.

‘‘It’s aspirational for many people but it actually creates a lateral capability for industry in general to create new world jobs.’’

Back at the CRC, Mitchell says that while her hard skills have served her well in her years in the space sector (as has a willingness to live and work overseas while the Australian sector was growing), she now understands the value of soft skills like communication and the power of networking.

Mitchell says she’s constantly seeing new faces at Australian space industry events, a sign of a strengthening local industry.

‘‘We’re right in that sweet spot where it’s about to grow significantly: there couldn’t be a better time to be in Australia and [working] in space.’’